The Seasons of Her Year II
O ’tis a fine May morn, they say,And blooms have blown;But wild and wintry is my day,My birds make moan;For he who vowed leaves me to payAlone—alone!
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Seasons of Her Year II is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, The Seasons of Her Year II, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/the-seasons-of-her-year-ii.html, id L16925.
Form and metre
The Seasons of Her Year II is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.0 syllables.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABAB sayA · blownB · dayA · moanB · payA · aloneB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O ’tis a fine May morn, they say, | 8 | ········ |
| And blooms have blown; | 4 | ···· |
| But wild and wintry is my day, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My birds make moan; | 4 | ···· |
| For he who vowed leaves me to pay | 8 | ········ |
| Alone—alone! | 4 | ˘/˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.